The present invention relates to recreational vehicles, and particularly to a trailer to be towed behind a motor home for carrying a small boat and towing a small automobile economically and from which the boat can easily be launched.
In recent years, motor homes have come into widespread use as a way to travel economically to vacation destinations. While such vehicles save the cost of hotel or motel lodging while providing a comfortable place to eat and sleep, motor homes are somewhat unhandy because of their size. It has become common, then, to tow a small automobile behind a large motor home, so that the small automobile can be used locally around a vacation destination.
In order to avoid the costs and inconveniences of boat rental, small boats are also often brought along on trips. In the past, this has sometimes been accomplished by carrying a small boat atop a motor home, which severely limits the size of boat which can be transported. Alternatively, a small boat can be fastened atop a smaller vehicle being towed, if that vehicle is large enough and the boat small enough.
Another alternative is the use of a trailer to carry both a boat and an automobile. Trailers useful in such a manner have been shown, for example, in Woodburn U.S Pat. No. 4,932,830 and McDonald U.S. Pat. No. 4,406,477, each of which depicts a trailer including a frame on which a boat may be loaded. The frame is then raised along a set of upright posts to provide room for an automobile to be driven onto the trailer to be carried beneath the boat. Such trailers are quite heavy, resulting in a substantial amount of weight which must be towed, and they are unnecessarily large for carrying small boats.
Cravens et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,880,250 discloses a somewhat different arrangement in which a boat and boat trailer are backed onto a specially equipped trailer, after which the boat and boat trailer are raised, providing room for an automobile to be driven onto the trailer. Weber U.S. Pat. No. 4,705,289 shows another trailer in which a boat trailer and boat are carried together above an automobile carried entirely on the platform of the trailer. These are undesirably heavy trailers for towing behind a motor home.
Drahos U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,243 shows a trailer including a forward extension upon which a boat trailer carrying a boat can be carried. This also results in a larger and heavier trailer than is desirable for towing behind a motor home. Hastings U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,161 and Modglin U.S. Pat. No. 3,446,516 show other trailers equipped with elongated tongues including space for supporting boats. None of these last three mentioned patents, however, provides an economical way for a single driver to bring a small automobile and a small boat along with a motor home.
What is desired, then, is a trailer of relatively light weight, by means of which a small automobile and a boat may be towed conveniently behind a motor home, without making the combination of motor home and towed vehicles so long as to be unmanageable or unsafe, and without requiring so much power that travel is unduly slowed.